| Small Press Expo Announces 20th Anniversary Guests Charles Burns, Jen Sorensen, Tom Tomorrow and Ben Katchor For Immediate Release Contact: Warren Bernard E-Mail: warren@spxpo.com Bethesda, Maryland; June 26, 2014 – This year is the 20th Anniversary of SPX, which will be held September 13 and 14, 2014 at the North Bethesda Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. For our 20th birthday, we are pleased to announce Charles Burns, Jen Sorensen, Tom Tomorrow and Ben Katchor to join in the celebration of the comic creators of the alt-weekly newspapers. They are in addition to the previously announced alt-weekly guests Jules Feiffer, Lynda Barry and James Sturm, as well as SPX first timers Brandon Graham, Emily Carroll, Drew Friedman and Mimi Pond. Charles Burns completes the final installment of his trilogy that began with The Hive and X'ed Out with the release this September of Sugar Skull. Mr. Burns is renown for his epic graphic novel Black Hole, as well as his work for such periodicals as Raw, The Believer and The New Yorker. Courtesy of Pantheon Books there will be advance copies of Sugar Skull at the show, as well as a special book plate designed just for SPX 2014. Jen Sorensen is the recipient of the this years prestigious Herblock Award, which is given every year for excellence in political cartooning. She also won the 2013 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in Cartoons as well as the 2013 National Cartoonist Society Award for Best Editorial Cartoons. Her political cartoons can be seen in various alt-weekly newspapers around the United States as well as at The Nib and her own web site, http://www.slowpokecomics.com. In addition to her weekly cartoon, she also does illustration work for such clients as the Kaiser Health News, The Dallas Observer, Ms. Magazine, Politico and her current home paper, The Austin Chronicle. Tom Tomorrow aka Dan Perkins is the creator behind This Modern World, his weekly political cartoon strip that has been running since 1990. He is a two time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in Cartoons, as well as the winner of the James Madison Freedom of Information Award and the 2012 Herblock Award. He is the author of 10 compilations of his cartoon work, as well as a children's book and he created the cover to the Pearl Jam album Backspacer. Ben Katchor started in the alt-weekly's in 1986 and six compilations out of his award winning work, the latest is the 2013 Hand Drying in America and Other Stories from Pantheon Books. He is an associate professor at Parsons The New School for Design and has taught cartooning all over the world. Mr. Katchor is also works in the theater as a librettist, having won an Obie award for his work on The Carbon Copy Building. About SPX Small Press Expo (SPX) is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. SPX is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit that brings together more than 600 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, and distributors each year. Graphic novels, mini comics, and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. SPX also has a two tracks of of panel discussions and interviews with this year's guests that run through both days of the event. The Ignatz Award is a festival prize held every year at SPX, with the winners chosen by attendees at the show. All works nominated for Ignatz Awards are donated to the Small Press Expo Collection at the Library of Congress, which is the first institutional collection in the United States dedicated to the indie comics field. As in previous years, profits from the SPX will go to support the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program, which funds graphic novel purchases for public and academic libraries, as well as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), which protects the First Amendment rights of comic book readers and professionals. For more information on the CBLDF, visit their website at http://www.cbldf.org. | 
